My Life as an Author

by Martin Farquhar Tupper

And this brings me, naturally enough, to give a detailed account of the two best and last séances I ever took the trouble to attend; for I have, during many years, entirely avoided such exhibitions, as generally childish, mentally unwholesome, and to some people dangerously seductive. I had several times asked my worthy friends last alluded to, to give me and a friend of mine, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the privilege of "assisting" at a séance under their experienced guidance: and accordingly we were invited to meet Mr. Home, the high priest of spiritualism, a quiet, well-mannered gentlemanly person enough, known to our host from his birth. The other guests were a countess, the widow of a colonel, and a distinguished physician; in all we numbered eight. My friend and I were requested privately, by our host, to conceal our probable incredulity if we desired the favour of the "spirits" in the way of manifestations; and as these were what we came for, besides our own polite desire to do at Rome as the Romans do, we readily assented to the reasonable request. After the usual greetings and small talk of the day, and tea and coffee and so forth, we all took seats round the drawing-room circular table, a very weighty one, as I proved afterwards, on a gigantic central pillar, and covered with a heavy piece of velvet tapestry; and before commencing the special business we came for, I was pleased to hear our host propose that we should all kneel round the table and offer up prayer: this he did, simply and beautifully, in some words, extemporary, closing with a Church collect and the Lord's Prayer. On my expressed approval of this course, when we rose, Mr. Home said it was always his custom, as a precautionary measure against the self-intrusion of evil spirits: admittedly a wisdom, even if it seemed somewhat unwise and perilous to be more or less courting the company of such unpleasant guests, if a séance (as experienced afterwards) did not happen to be made safe by exorcism. And now the gaslights bracketed round the room were put as low as possible, making a dim, religious semi-darkness; however, as there was a bright fire in the grate, and some small scintillæ of gas, and one's eyesight soon gets accustomed to any diminution of light, we could soon see nearly as well as usual. This "gloaming" is a common condition in séances, and for aught any one knows may be an electrical sine quâ non as needed for animal magnetism; albeit some paid professionals may possibly find darkness a very useful veil for cheatery. While we were chatting round the table,—and Mr. Home enjoined this as better than the silent sobriety I looked for—suddenly the table shuddered, and a cold wind swept over our hands laid upon it. "They are coming now," said Mr. Home, which everybody seemed glad of, though that cold wind felt to me not a little "uncanny," but I said nothing in disparagement, for fear of stopping a "manifestation." Soon loud knocks were heard, apparently from the middle of the table, and on sundry spirits being alleged to be present, Mr. Home proceeded to question them through the ordinary clumsy fashion, of the alphabet, and some unimportant answers were elicited, which I fail to remember and in common honesty must not invent. We were soon to see stranger things; and I suppose the séance was exceptionally successful, as I afterwards noticed some of it in print. For while we were looking and expecting, suddenly the table began to tilt this way and that, and then as if by an effort the ponderous mass, with all our hands still upon the velvet pall, positively mounted slowly into the air, insomuch that we were obliged to rise from our chairs and stand to reach the surface. I could see it at least two feet from the carpet, and Mr. Home invited me to take especial notice that none of the company could possibly be lifting the table; indeed, the strength of all of us combined would have been barely enough for such a heavy task. Of course, every one else but myself and friend supposed that the "spirits" had kindly done this miracle to please us; but I unfortunately said "Oh! Mrs. Hall! it will crush your chandelier!" (one of Venice glass, very precious)—at which unbelieving remark, probably, the spirits took umbrage, for at once the table ceased ascending, and with a slow oscillation descended very gently on to the carpet. This sort of petty miracle is a frequent experience among the spiritualists, and how it is effected I cannot imagine. There could be no contrivance or machinery in our host's drawing-room, as must be the case imitatively at the Egyptian Hall; none of the company could be conspiring to deceive, and more than all, that huge, heavy table rising up against the law of gravitation was enough to chase away all incredulity. One fact is stronger than fifty theories; and one reliable success overweighs a thousand failures. I testify to that which I have seen.

But more, and more wondrous, was to follow. All at once Mr. Home flung himself back in his chair, looking wild and white; and then rising slowly and solemnly, went to the still bright fire, into which he thrust his unprotected hands, and taking out a double handful of live coals, placed them—as a fire offering—upon Mr. Hall's snow-white head, combing the hair over them with his fingers, all which our host appeared to receive more than patiently—religiously. Thereafter Mr. Home placed them in the Countess's blonde-lace cap, and carried them, as a favour vouchsafed by the spirits, to each of us, to hold in our hands. When he came to me, Mr. Hall said: "My friend, have faith." "Yes," I answered, "and courage, too;" whereupon I was blest with a good handful of those wonderful coals, still hot enough to burn any skin; but, somehow or other, I felt no pain and had no mark. Here was another law of nature put to shame, in the miraculous fact that fire was seemingly deprived of the power of burning. How this could be, I cannot guess; but I record manfully the fact as witnessed. After this, an accordion held under the table by Mr. Home with one hand, the other being upon the table, positively played a tune of itself—"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon"—requested by Dr. Chambers, "that being the tune his dead child loved so." I was requested to look under the table to see the "spirit-hand" operating near the carpet; but I saw nothing except the vitalised accordion expanding and contracting of itself, being held tightly at the upper handle by Mr. Home. Some of the company, however, claimed to see and to shake hands with the child, and Mr. Home requested me to ask for a similar favour by placing my hand open under the table; this, accordingly, I ventured to do, with the result of feeling my thumb sensibly touched and thrilled, which I was told was a good sign of favour from the spirits—albeit in my own mind I remembered what our omniscient Shakespeare sings at the mouth of one of the Macbeth witches,

"By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes"—

and failed to feel quite comfortable. Soon, however, Mr. Home said: "The accordion is leaving my hand;" and I saw the mysterious thing crawling on the floor like a lame dog till it got into a corner. Of course, I suspected a secret string; but all at once it moved out and came back, moaning Æolianly as it went, and stood up beside the chair of Mrs. Colonel N. S., who patted it lovingly; thence passing behind me it went and stood beside the Countess, who also caressed it; and then Mr. Home said: "Now ask the spirit to come to you;" whereto I acceded, and the accordion crept near me, as if unwillingly, and stood up; but when I touched it the thing shrank from my unsympathetic hand, and fell down flop.

After this, I noticed that my naval friend was staring with all his eyes at something over our military widow's head, and that his hair (it is red, which colour is very spiritualistic) stood on end as with fear. "What's the matter, P.?" I asked. "Don't you see it?" responded he. "What?" "The grey figure behind Mrs. N. S., bearded like an Egyptian Sphinx." "That's the Colonel!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, and the widow bowed religiously, with a "Dear! is it you?" On this, as my friend was terribly frightened, we soon took leave; and when we went home, I found that he was so pursued by "spirits" rapping all about him, that he actually vacated his own room and slept in mine, for protection against the invisible, on two chairs till morning broke; when he feared the spirits no longer. I may mention that this insight into an immaterial world (he having been inclined before to pyrrhonism) quite altered his career, and that soon after he took holy orders. In this connection I may state, that according to a printed account I have seen, both Mr. and Mrs. Hall were converted from avowed materialism by spirit manifestation, and that when the question of "Cui bono?" is raised, his experience and that of divers others (the aforesaid Dr. Chambers in particular) will avouch for the practical usefulness of these inexplicable marvels.

But I must have done, with only one other reminiscence soon after that at Ashley Place. This time the venue is Fitzroy Square, and the company (to omit needless detail) was a polyglot one, consisting chiefly of a German merchant, a Hebrew financier, a French governess, my naval friend aforesaid, who was quick at Latin, and I, who more or less remembered my Greek. Of course English was represented in the two only other guests; and it will be seen how strangely philology enters into this my next and concluding anecdote. After plenty of other rappings and noises (I noticed by the way that all the metal things in the room, as castors and cruets—it was a dining-room—and wine coolers and bronze chandelier, were clicked and clanged), and after the usual stupid alphabet questions and answers had been exhibited; after also the heavy mahogany table on five substantial pillars had been miraculously moved about the room and tilted, as we failed to effect at the finale when we tried; all at once a thundering knock quite shook the table and startled us, on which Dr. Connell, our (unprofessional) medium for the nonce, as he had seen more of spiritualistics than we had, called for the alphabetical test to ascertain who it could be that knocked so furiously, for the blows were often repeated. So then, by the slow method of letter by letter, he made out the name "Jamblic," and then gave it up in despair, as he said it was a mischievous imp that was sporting with us; but the knocks still continued, and some one suggested that perhaps this strange name was foreign, and that his own language would please the incensed spirit better than English. Accordingly, he was addressed by the assembled circle severally in French, German, Hebrew, and Latin, all in vain; when I bethought me of Greek and the Pythagoreans and spoke out "Ei su Iamblicos" (Art thou Iamblicus?)—on which, as if with joy at having been discovered, there was a rush of noises and knocks all round the room (my perfervid imagination fancied the flapping of wings), and immediately after there ensued a dead silence! So we soon broke up and went home. Opening my classical dictionary at Iamblicus, I read what I certainly had not seen or thought of for more than thirty years, that he was an author on "the mysteries of the Egyptians," and was bracketed with Porphyry as a professor of the black art. Was then this unpleasant visitor to Fitzroy Square no other than that magician redivivus? An awkward possibility.

And now to bring these scattered reminiscences to a practical conclusion. What can I, what can my readers decide, on a rational consideration of the whole matter? It is, no doubt, very baffling to judge how rightly to think about it. I have stated a few facts that have come under my own personal knowledge; but there are thousands of others similar and even more extraordinary, which numerous persons quite as credible as I am can vouch for in like manner to be true facts while remaining unexplained miracles. For myself, I must suspend judgment; waiting to see what in these wonderful times—some further development of electricity, for example, may haply produce for us. After recent marvels of the telephone, microphone, photophone, and I know not what others, why should not some Edison or Lane Fox stumble upon a form of psychic force emanating from our personal nervous organisation, and capable of operating physically on all things round us, the immaterial conquering the material it pervades? Some such vague theory as to spiritualistic manifestations may be a far more rational as well as pleasing explanation of these modern marvels than to suppose that our dead friends come at any medium's summons to move tables, talk bad grammar, and play accordions; or that angels, good and evil, are allowed to be employed in mystifying or terrifying the frivolous assisters at a séance.

Beyond and after this, I might add, but for its too great length, the indisputable testimony of certain friends of mine as to inexplicable writings on locked slates and paper, the revelation of secrets, nay visible apparitions, and both records of the secret past and revelations of the still more secret future afterwards fulfilled,—to all which I cannot, as an honest man and a believer in human evidence, refuse to give a distinct testimony, even though conjurors perpetually baffle our confused judgment.

In this connection I will extract from one of my Archive-books the curious story of a mysterious key in which my family are still interested: for the secret is not yet solved. In the fourteenth volume, then, of my Archives occurs this long note, accompanied by the drawing which I made years ago of the weird-looking key: with a loose ring handle, a threefold staircase body, and a strangely ringed column.

"My father died in his sleep, December 8, 1844, at Southwick House, in Windsor Park, on the same night after its owner, Lord Limerick, had also died there in his arms, my father having been his medical friend for thirty years. My father used to carry in his pocket a strange key, whereof the figure was very unusual, as it folded up, and though large he carried it in his pocket habitually: and he used to say in his quietly humorous and reserved manner, 'under that key lies a fortune;' my mother and I and others remember this well. When I came to be executor, there was nearly nothing to guide me as to the amount of my father's property,—and I certainly did not succeed in realising all that he was supposed to have acquired. It was wonderful that with his large income he left so little. So, we all thought that some hoard locked by this key contained the missing treasure; my father's habitual taciturnity, and secretiveness favouring this idea. But, nowhere could the lock to fit it be found; nowhere either at banks or lawyers or anywhere about our old house in Burlington Street or at Albury, appeared the chest or cupboard containing the fancied accumulations; and to this hour, June 12, 1873, nearly thirty years after my father's sudden death, has the mystery not been cleared up. Once, on an occasion of a spiritualistic séance at Mr. Carter Hall's, I handed the said key to Mr. Home when entranced, and he shuddered at it, and uttered the name 'Elizabeth Henderson,'—which I thought at the time a bad guess, as one utterly unknown to me: but oddly enough it proved to be the name of the Queen's housekeeper at Windsor. However, on inquiry nothing further came of this, for she was not in office when my father died at the Park. To-day I have taken the key to a Miss Hudson, a clairvoyante, who never saw me before, nor was told my name, nor my errand, except that I laid that key silently before her. She can tell me very little, except that the mystery is soon to be cleared up, and that certain spirits (from description possibly my mother and brother William) much wish it. I gave no sort of clues, but the medium guessed at my father's character, and at the long lapse of time since the loss of the chest, and at the hiding of it in some 'bank,'—whether underground or at a banker's did not appear. The medium's 'attendant spirit'—one 'Daisy, an Indian papoose'—says it is 'in a dark place, like a vault, and mouldy.' I am urged to inquire further. Miss Hudson, a common-looking but respectable woman of about thirty,—living in a lodging near Bloomsbury Square,—utterly ignorant who I was and all about me,—said (in her spirit voice) that I was a writer of books, and did great good, and was inspired by two spirits, one of the fair and lively sort all in white, and the other an old philosopher—a strange guess at my mixed medley of writings. Miss Hudson promised me that I should soon know the secret of the key, because the spirits wished it, and because there was a blue magnetic circle round the key."